25 new films by female direc­tors you need to see

The rel­a­tive lack of films direct­ed by women in the 2017 Cannes line-up may not come as a huge sur­prise; the world’s most pres­ti­gious film fes­ti­val has only ever award­ed its top prize, the Palme d’Or, to one woman – Jane Cam­pi­on for The Piano way back in 1993. Luck­i­ly, there’s a whole world of film­mak­ing out­side of the male auteur-dom­i­nat­ed fes­ti­val cir­cuit. From the return of Sofia Cop­po­la to excit­ing new­com­ers such as Hope Dick­son Leach, we’ve col­lect­ed 25 upcom­ing works by female direc­tors to look out for.

Direct­ed by Hope Dick­son Leach
Released 12 May, 2017

The 2014 Som­er­set floods act as metaphor­i­cal­ly rich back­drop for a woman return­ing to her farm­ing fam­i­ly after the death of her broth­er. This is Hope Dick­son Leach’s debut fea­ture fol­low­ing her acclaimed shorts The Dawn Cho­rus and Morn­ing Echo.

Direct­ed by Lucia Aniel­lo
Released 16 June, 2017

Five old friends (played by Scar­lett Johans­son, Kate McK­in­non, Jil­lian Bell, Ilana Glaz­er, and Zoë Kravitz) reunite after 10 years for a wild par­ty – and acci­den­tal­ly kill a male strip­per. It would take a very spe­cial direc­tor to make a com­e­dy out of a plot revolv­ing around a dead sex work­er, but con­sid­er­ing Lucia Aniel­lo earned her com­e­dy chops direct­ing episodes of Broad City, it might just work.

Direct­ed Amma Asante
Released TBC

Okay, so we weren’t exact­ly blown away by Amma Asante’s last film, A Unit­ed King­dom, but we’re still con­fi­dent that she is a direc­tor who can deliv­er the goods. Where Hands Touch, which is due this year, is based on one of the director’s own screen­plays and depicts a romance between a mixed-race Ger­man girl and an SS Officer.

Direct­ed by Clio Barnard
Released TBC

Known for depict­ing for­got­ten north­ern com­mu­ni­ties with a deft intel­li­gence, Barnard earned crit­i­cal respect both for her 2010 exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary The Arbor and her 2013 fic­tion fea­ture The Self­ish Giant. We have big hopes for Dark Riv­er, set on a York­shire farm as a woman reunites with her hos­tile broth­er after a 15-year absence.

Direct­ed by Ildikó Enye­di
Released TBC

On Body and Soul marks the tri­umphant return of Hun­gar­i­an direc­tor Ildikó Enye­di after years in the wilder­ness. It was the sur­prise win­ner of the 2017 Berlin Film Fes­ti­val Gold­en Bear, telling of two peo­ple who con­duct a strange rela­tion­ship in the realm of their dreams.

Direct­ed by Sofia Cop­po­la
Released 23 June, 2017

It would’ve been inter­est­ing to see what Sofia Cop­po­la could make of a live-action Lit­tle Mer­maid film, but when that fell through she returned with per­haps the most unex­pect­ed project imag­in­able: a remake of Don Siegel Civ­il War-era bat­tle of the sex­es dra­ma, The Beguiled. It’ll be fas­ci­nat­ing to see how her sharp per­spec­tive alters the orig­i­nal film’s del­i­cate­ly bal­anced – and provoca­tive – gen­der politics.

Direct­ed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Released TBC

Kings is a long time com­ing: Deniz Gamze Ergüven orig­i­nal­ly want­ed to direct the film in 2011 but wasn’t able to get the fund­ing. The Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed suc­cess of her Turk­ish-lan­guage pic­ture Mus­tang must have changed some minds, and Ergüven final­ly directs Halle Berry and Daniel Craig in this roman­tic dra­ma set dur­ing the 1992 Los Ange­les riots.

Direct­ed by Chris­tine Franz
Released 21 April, 2017

Jason Williamson worked in a Not­ting­ham chick­en fac­to­ry before form­ing the Sleaford Mods, the min­i­mal­ist punk-hop duo who rose to (rel­a­tive) fame with impas­sioned songs about aus­ter­i­ty-era Britain. Berlin-based music jour­nal­ist Chris­tine Franz fol­lows the band as they tour the gloomy coun­try that made them in her first fea­ture-length film.

Direct­ed by Kit­ty Green
Released 28 April, 2017

Kit­ty Green used a cast­ing call as a start­ing point for her 2015 short The Face of Ukraine: Cast­ing Oksana Baiul. Here, she exam­ines the unsolved mur­der of six-year-old beau­ty pageant queen Jon­Benét Ram­sey, which still pro­vokes media fas­ci­na­tion over 20 years on. A cast­ing call out for actors to play Jon­Benét and var­i­ous oth­er peo­ple involved in the case allows locals to explore their own the­o­ries and feel­ings around the murder.

Direct­ed by Eliza Hittman
Released TBC

Fol­low­ing her 2013 debut fea­ture, It Felt Like Love, about a teenage girl’s sex­u­al blos­som­ing in Brook­lyn, we were excit­ed to see what direc­tor Eliza Hittman would do next. This new one played at the 2017 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val and was warm­ly received.

Direct­ed by Kathryn Bigelow
Released 4 August, 2017

Judg­ing by its elec­tri­fy­ing first trail­er, Detroit looks like a clean mix of Ava DuVernay’s Sel­ma and John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. The film is a mul­ti-strand sur­vey of the 1967 Detroit riot, with John Boye­ga star­ring as a cop enveloped in the may­hem. Released to coin­cide with the anniver­sary of the riot, 4 August can’t come quick­ly enough.

Direct­ed by Pat­ty Jenk­ins
Released 2 June, 2017

Maybe the one super­hero movie we’re actu­al­ly, gen­uine­ly look­ing for­ward to this year. A female direc­tor mak­ing a film about per­haps the quin­tes­sen­tial female super­hero is good news all round – let’s just hope Gal Gadot gets more room to breath than she did in the lam­en­ta­ble Bat­man V Super­man, where her char­ac­ter was first introduced.

Direct­ed by Lisa Langseth
Released TBC

Women dri­ve the action on both sides of the lends in Eupho­ria. Ali­cia Vikan­der and Eva Green star as sis­ters trav­el­ling through Europe towards a mys­tery des­ti­na­tion. It’s the first release from Vikander’s pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, Vikar­i­ous Pro­duc­tions, and is also Swedish direc­tor Lisa Langseth’s first Eng­lish-lan­guage film.

Direct­ed by Aman­da Lipitz
Released 4 August, 2017

Aman­da Lipitz’s debut doc­u­men­tary fea­ture fol­lows three dis­ad­van­taged teenage dancers in Bal­ti­more as they nav­i­gate the col­lege entry process. It pre­miered at Sun­dance ear­ly this year where it was praised for its vital, joy­ful look at young black women in con­tem­po­rary America.

Direct­ed Haifaa al-Man­sour
Released TBC

You’ll remem­ber the Sau­di Ara­bi­an direc­tor Haifaa Al-Man­sour as the secre­tive mak­er of the charm­ing rite of pas­sage com­e­dy, Wad­j­da. For her fol­low-up she’s teamed up with the always-inter­est­ing Elle Fan­ning to tell the sto­ry of one of goth­ic literature’s most potent voic­es, Mary Shel­ley, author of Frankenstein.

Direct­ed by Angela Schan­elec
Released TBC

One of the big talk­ing points of the 2016 Locarno Film Fes­ti­val, this lat­est from Ger­man direc­tor Angela Schan­elec cap­tures the exper­i­men­tal yet inclu­sive spir­it of ​’90s-era Jean-Luc Godard as it sur­veys the frac­tured roman­tic life of two cou­ples at dif­fer­ent ends (geo­graph­i­cal­ly and tem­po­ral­ly) of Europe. Try and catch this chal­leng­ing but emo­tion­al­ly sat­is­fy­ing tease whichev­er way you can.

Direct­ed by Lucre­cia Mar­tel
Released TBC

Lucre­cia Martel’s The Head­less Woman remains one of the great films of the 2000s, so you’ll for­give us for bare­ly being able to con­tain our excite­ment as this extra­or­di­nary direc­tor returns to the van­guard with a new fea­ture. It’s based on the com­plex 1956 nov­el by Anto­nio Di Benedet­to, about a self-hat­ing diplo­mat ques­tion­ing his sex­u­al desires.

Direct­ed by Stel­la Meghie
Released 19 May, 2017

The lat­est young-adult nov­el adap­tion to hit our screens, Every­thing Every­thing fol­lows a sick­ly house­bound teen as she starts a tex­ting romance with a hand­some new neigh­bour. Don’t expect many shock­ers from this cute love sto­ry, but Stel­la Meghie impressed with her 2016 debut Jean of the Jone­ses, so we’re keep­ing an open mind.

Direct­ed by Lau­ra Poitras
Released TBC

When Risk debuted in 2016, our ini­tial reac­tion was that it rather skirt­ed around the dark­er aspects of its sub­ject, the Wik­ileaks founder and cur­rent fugi­tive Julian Assange. Poitras kept the cam­eras rolling after the screen­ing and cap­tured the sub­se­quent dra­ma sur­round­ing Hillary Clinton’s emails, which were released by Wik­iLeaks and pos­si­bly cost Clin­ton the elec­tion. A new trail­er for the updat­ed and re-cut Risk hints at a far more crit­i­cal por­trait of Assange from the Oscar-win­ning director.

Direct­ed by Eli­na Psyk­ou
Released TBC

Greek direc­tor Psykou’s debut The Eter­nal Return of Anto­nis Paraskevas drew mixed praise from crit­ics for its depic­tion of a TV host’s men­tal col­lapse along­side Greece’s finan­cial dis­as­ter. Her fol­low-up con­tin­ues the themes of pan-Euro­pean polit­i­cal trou­ble in a mag­i­cal-real­ist tale of a young Russ­ian boy fol­low­ing his moth­er to Athens to meet his new stepfather.

Direct­ed by Cate Short­land
Released 12 May, 2017

This Aus­tralian direc­tor returns with her sec­ond fea­ture set in Ger­many, about a young woman whose romance with a young schol­ar takes a turn for the high­ly dis­tress­ing. Ear­ly word on Cate Shortland’s Euro-thriller is pos­i­tive – par­tic­u­lar the stel­lar cen­tral turn by Tere­sa Palmer.

Direct­ed by Katell Quil­lévéré
Released 28 April, 2017

We can already chalk this up as one of the great French films of 2017, so make sure it’s on your radar. Katell Quillévéré’s third fea­ture as direc­tor is a dra­ma in which the cen­tral char­ac­ter is a human heart. We fol­low its thrilling and pre­car­i­ous jour­ney from the chest of a teenag­er killed in in a car acci­dent to chest of a old­er woman want­i­ng to upgrade her own dodgy ticker.

Direct­ed by Lynne Ram­say
Released TBC

Fol­low­ing the fias­co sur­round­ing Jane Got a Gun, which saw Lynne Ram­say leave the project acri­mo­nious­ly in 2013, the acclaimed Scot­tish film­mak­er is back with this Jonathan Ames adap­tion. She’s bring­ing Joaquin Phoenix with her, play­ing a vet­er­an who makes an ill-fat­ed attempt to res­cue a young girl from a sex ring.

Direct­ed by Lone Scher­fig
Released 21 April, 2017

Even though this film is being sold hard as com­e­dy, it works far bet­ter as a wartime melo­dra­ma look­ing at the indeli­ble nature of the filmed image. Top turns by Gem­ma Arter­ton and Bill Nighy pow­er Lone Scherfig’s lat­est about the impor­tance of cin­e­ma dur­ing World War Two, in beat­ing the Bosch and as a way to keep the home fires burning.

Direct­ed by Anocha Suwichako­rn­pong
Released 16 June 2017

Anocha Suwichako­rn­pong is a lead­ing light in con­tem­po­rary Thai indie cin­e­ma, whose last fea­ture, 2009’s Mun­dane His­to­ry, won the Tiger Award at the 2010 Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam. This fol­low up begins with a fic­tion­al film­mak­er strug­gling to por­tray a stu­dent upris­ing, and con­tin­ues on into an expan­sive and imag­i­na­tive explo­ration of class, his­to­ry and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in mod­ern Thailand.